Word-Wednesday for January 1, 2020

And here is the Wannaskan Almanac for Word-Wednesday, January 1, 2020, the 1st Wednesday of the year,  the first day of the year, with 364 days remaining.


Nordhem Lunch: CLOSED


Earth/Moon Almanac for January 1, 2020
Sunrise: 8:17am; Sunset: 4:37pm; 60 seconds more daylight today
Moonrise: 12:01pm; Moonset: 11:27am, waxing crescent


Temperature Almanac for January 1, 2020
                Average           Record          Today
High             14                    38                 29
Low              -4                  -39                 17


January 1 Celebrations from National Day Calendar

• National Bloody Mary Day
• National Hangover Day
• Z Day
• First Foot Day

January 1 Word Riddle
A word of one syllable,
easy and short,
read backward and forward the same,
expresses the sentiments warm from the heart,
and to beauty lays principal claim.*


January 1 Pun
You’re either part of the resolution or part of the problem.


January 1 Notable Historic Events, Literary or Otherwise, from On This Day
177 Commodus, son of Emperor Marcus Aurelius becomes consul for the first time - at 15 then youngest ever in Roman history, still has accidents at night.
1673 Regular mail delivery begins between New York and Boston.
1785 Daily Universal Register (Times of London) publishes first issue.
1818 Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is published anonymously.
1831 William Lloyd Garrison publishes 1st issue of abolitionist journal.
1881 Dr John Watson is first introduced to Sherlock Holmes in story written by Arthur Conan Doyle.
1995 Last Far Side cartoon by Gary Larson. [but you can still get your daily fix here]


January 1 Author/Artist/Character Birthdays, from On This Day

• 1729 Edmund Burke.
• 1752 Betsy Ross.
• 1800 Václav Emanuel Horák, Czechoslovakian composer.
• 1879 E. M. Forster.
• 1919 J. D. Salinger.
• 1935 Delores "Lolita" Haze from Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita.

Words-I-Looked-Up-This-Week Writer's Challenge
Make a single sentence (or poem) from the following words:

• bonzer: excellent; first-rate.
• bugbear: a cause of obsessive fear, irritation, or loathing.
• bummock: strong ale brewed in large quantities for a feast.
• fewtrils: small or trivial things; knick-knacks.
• heterotopia: a place (or notional place) that exists as an ordinary part of a society but which is also in some way demarcated, separate, or marginal, meaning the norms of wider society (though present) can become blurred, undermined, resisted, or transformed by different modes of thought and behavior arising within the place itself.
• micawber: one who is poor but lives in optimistic expectation of better fortune.
• morigerous: obedient, compliant, submissive.
• mythomane: a person with a strong or irresistible propensity for fantasizing, lying, or exaggerating.
• nomophobia: anxiety about not having access to a mobile phone or mobile phone services.
• perink: adj. and noun; exact, precise, extremely accurate. Also: fussy, fastidious, prim; neat.

January 1, 2020 Word-Wednesday Feature
Fart

An etymological hybrid of the Old English feorting and the German farzen/furzen, the Oxford English Dictionary defines fart /fAHRt/ as follows:

verb
1. emit gas from the anus.
2. waste time on silly or trivial things.

noun
1. an emission of gas from the anus.
2. a boring or contemptible person.

Under separate Wikipedia entries for Fart (word) and Flatulence, we learn that cognates are found in Old Norse, Slavic, Greek, and Sanskrit. The word fart has been incorporated into the colloquial and technical speech of a number of occupations, including computing. It is often considered unsuitable in formal situations as it may be considered vulgar or offensive, but Wannaskan Almanac is an open-minded venue. 

Accordingly, today's Word-Wednesday features some of the more prominent literary and historic uses of this word.  Let's start with the poets.

Most people enjoy the sight of their own handwriting, as they enjoy the smell of their own farts.
W.H. Auden

A person who discreetly farts in an elevator is not a divine being, and a man needs to know this.
Robert Bly

This Nicholas anon leet fle a fart,
As greet as it had been a thonder-dent,
That with the strook he was almoost yblent;
And he was redy with his iren hoot,
And Nicholas amydde the ers he smoot,
Of gooth the skyn an hande brede aboute,
The hoote kultour brende so his toute,
And for the smert he wende for to dye.
As he were wood, for wo he gan to crye,
"Help! Water! Water! Help for Goddes herte!
Geoffrey Chaucer, The Miller's Tale from Canterbury Tales

Home is where the heart is, home is where the fart is.
Come let us fart in the home.
There is no art in a fart.
Still a fart may not be artless.
Let us fart and artless fart in the home.
Ernest Hemingway, 88 Poems 

And in winter, under my greatcoat, I wrapped myself in swathes of newspaper, and did not shed them until the earth awoke, for good, in April. The Times Literary Supplement was admirably adapted to this purpose, of a neverfailing toughness and impermeability. Even farts made no impression on it. I can't help it, gas escapes from my fundament on the least pretext, it's hard not to mention it now and then, however great my distaste. One day I counted them. Three hundred and fifteen farts in nineteen hours, or an average of over sixteen farts an hour. After all it's not excessive. Four farts every fifteen minutes. It's nothing. Not even one fart every four minutes. It's unbelievable. Damn it, I hardly fart at all, I should never have mentioned it.
Samuel Beckett, Molloy

CLOWN: Are these, I pray you, wind instruments?
FIRST MUSICIAN: Ay marry are they, sir.
CLOWN: O, thereby hangs a tail.
FIRST MUSICIAN: Whereby hangs a tail, sir?
CLOWN: Marry, sir, by many a wind instrument that I know.
William Shakespeare, Othello

He that lives upon hope will die farting.
Benjamin Franklin, Fart Proudly

... learning the knack of disconnecting her sense of smell, until she could switch it off like a radio and in the bland silence of its absence could drown in the sound of Nazarébaddoor’s hypnotic voice without having her reverie interrupted by the scent of sheep shit or Nazarébaddoor’s own frequent and extraordinary buffalo farts.
Salman Rushdie, Shalimar the Clown

Maman ! hurle Carmen, en voyant que je partais et que j'avais déjà un pied dehors. Ne t'en va donc pas comme ça ! Laisse-nous quelque chose, en attendant que Lucien trouve du travail ! » « Tout ce que j'peux vous laisser, c'est ça ! » que j'leurs dis , en levant une jambe et en lâchant un pet.
Romain Gary, Le Vin des Morts 

Jerry Ford is so dumb he can't fart and chew gum as the same time.
Lyndon B. Johnson

A happy fart never comes from a miserable ass.
Martin Luther

We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different.
Kurt Vonnegut

What is like a smelly fart, that, although invisible is obvious? One's own faults, that are precisely as obvious as the effort made to hide them.
7th Dalai Lama

From A Year with Rilke, January 1 Entry
I Choose to Begin, from Early Journals.

I love all beginnings, despite their anxiousness and their uncertainty, which belong to every commencement. If I have earned a pleasure or a reward, or if I wish that something had not happened; if I doubt the worth of an experience and remain in my past—then I choose to begin at this very second.

Begin what? I begin. I have already thus begun a thousand lives.


Be better than yesterday,
learn a new word today,
try to stay out of trouble - at least until tomorrow,
and write when you have the time.

*eye.